


leave the silver city to all the silver girls

by detectivemeer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Broken Hearts, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Longing, Loss, Multi, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivemeer/pseuds/detectivemeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm not her."</p>
            </blockquote>





	leave the silver city to all the silver girls

The first time it happens is after Allison's funeral. They fuck in the car, her hands hard on the back of his neck. She never opens her eyes, but he don't know that, because neither does he. Lydia kisses him like maybe she can find salvation from his lips, and he doesn’t know if that's true, but she's warm and familiar and maybe it doesn't matter. Her breath comes in small, warm pants against his shoulder, seeping through the material of his dress shirt. He tries to remember how consoling her became her consoling him became kissing became--

She doesn't look at him afterward, but he doesn’t know that, because neither does he.

"I think it's best--" Lydia says, just as Scott says, "I don't want--"

There's a weighted silence; he buttons his jacket and slips out of the car, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, and he waits until even his enhanced hearing can no longer pick up the rumble of her car to sob. He can taste Allison on his lips, on all the places Lydia touched him.

-

He thinks maybe it won't be as awkward as he fears, and he’s right. It's much worse.

Lydia corners him by the lockers after the fourth day of stilted conversation and averted eye contact.

"Look," she says, staring carefully at her ear. "We needed it. It was the reckless stage of the grieving process." He’s pretty sure there is no such stage, but he bites his tongue and tries not to think about the love bite on her collarbone. "We both loved her. It... it makes sense, in a way. But it's over. So we don't need to be weird about it."

"Okay," he says.

-

A week later they’re kissing against the locked door of the school bathroom as she untucks his shirt by the fistful, dragging his body closer to hers. Scott can feel her anger under her skin like a living thing, her movements frantic. She bites his lip and he holds her waist steady under his palms, like maybe he can steal some of that anger through osmosis.

Lydia pulls away and gives him a hard look. "I'm not her."

"Neither am I." Her pulse falters under his fingers, and he almost want to laugh, because he’s not that naive.

"Okay."

"It's not." Scott brushes her hair from her face, smiles, small and sad.

"No," Lydia returns the expression, voice dropping to a whisper. "No, I guess it's not."

-

After that she rents a motel room just outside of town, and he tries not to feel guilty for letting her pay, but a part of him does anyway. He tries not to feel guilty.

He tries.

"This is wrong," he says, but only after her hair is damp with sweat and her naked body is curled away from his. He knows he should feel worse about it, but it's hard to feel much of anything, these days.

Lydia shrugs, reapplying her lip gloss with steady hands and hard eyes. "She's dead. Everything's wrong."

-

(She's nothing like Allison. She's shorter and curved where Allison was long and muscled. Her lips are too full and her hair has product in it and her hands are smaller. She kisses him like she's dying, her every move is desperate and jilted and he can't pretend it's Allison, because Allison is dead. Because Allison kissed with starshine on her skin, laughter trapped between sheets and rolled across her tongue. Allison's hands were killer's, were creator's, were strong and still and so soft between his. She's nothing like Allison, she's Lydia, and he can't pretend she's not. But if he closes his eyes hard enough and the shadowed room is kind enough he swears it's as close as he’s felt to Allison since he watched her get buried. And maybe it is wrong, maybe he’ll never understand why. Maybe it's that Lydia's the only other person in the world who loved her like he did. Maybe it's just nice to be with someone who he doesn’t have to pretend with at all.)

-

Lydia pokes him awake.

"Ow," he mutters, turning away.

"Get up." She shoves her toes in his side and he jerks upright. She struggles against a grin. "Brush your hair."

"Why? What?" he scrubs at his eyes, and glances at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It's only seven, and a Saturday. He doesn’t need to leave for a few hours yet. It's then his nose alerts him to the spread of bagels and fruit set up on the tiny desk in the corner.

"I need help prepping for this entrance exam." She tosses a thick, glossy textbook at him, and extends a bagel slice. "I got you breakfast."

"Is this a date?"

Lydia rolls her eyes in a profound way. "Don't be ridiculous," she says, which isn't a no.

He takes the bagel, and smears a streak of cream cheese across her cheek with his thumb. "That's for waking me up with her weird bony toes." Scott sticks his tongue out at her offended gasp. She laughs and it strikes him that he can't remember the last time she looked... maybe not _happy_ , but at least not sad. He can't remember the last time he felt not sad.

Scott smiles, grabs her hand, and doesn’t comment on how she doesn’t let go.

-

"Did she know?"

"God, no." Lydia rolls her eyes, gesturing slightly with a nail brush, slick with pink polish. "I would have gotten over it, too. I mean, we were best friends. I would have gotten past it for that. It was a crush, if anything."

He doesn’t know when Lydia got so good at lying, but it hurts, in a sharp, sad way. He reshuffles her flashcards, not entirely sure what made him break their study session (which have become something like routine) with the question. She must see something on his face she doesn't like, because her lips twist unkindly and her eyes narrow.

"What do you think is better, hmm? Having her and losing her, or never having her at all?"

His throat is thick but he holds her gaze. "She wasn't something anyone could have. She wasn't a something at all, Lydia."

"Obviously I know she's not a carnival prize." A glob of pink nail polish slips off the brush, splats against the towel laid out beneath Lydia's feet. "But really, is the whole, ‘you can't miss what you never had' bullshit better?"

"I don't know." He isn’t sure when he got so good at lying, either.

-

"I told you not to come." Lydia's pout is surly to the point of dramatic, and he steers her gently up the stairs.

"You left me four messages about how drunk you are and how much you love lime daiquiris, of course I came."

"I was having a knife off. A night off." She bites her lip, but her giggle bursts forth. "My best friend got shanked by a creepy bug demon don't I get to get drunk on my night off?"

He drops her off in her bed, pulls off her frankly scary heels, manipulates her limbs into a comfortable looking position. Scott makes a quick run to the kitchen, sets a glass of water on her nightstand, and drapes a blanket over her softly snoring body. But just as he’s about to leave, her hand whips out, and yanks him back by the wrist.

"Hey." Scott tries for a smile, but even he can hear the rough exhaustion in his voice. He drops down in a crouch so they’re face to face.

"Allison used to steal my lip gloss." Her purple pillow case darkens as tears drip off her nose. "She never really liked to spend money on the good stuff, so she'd always make some excuse to use mine. I bought her some for her birthday."

"Lydia..."

"What did she taste like? The last time he kissed her?" She smiles and it's ugly. "Was it pomegranate? That was her favorite."

"I don't think--"

"You should have saved her. You’re a fucking true alpha, you should have, you--" Lydia's jaw flinches; she looks away. He wishes the blood on his hands was a metaphor and he wishes the world would stop spinning.

He can't tell her that he knows, because he doesn’t. Because Lydia felt Allison's death for hours before it happened and she warned them all, and he, he is always a day late and a rescue short and what's the point of a true alpha who can't save anybody?

So he doesn’t say anything at all.

"When does it stop?" Lydia's eyes are big and wet and wild. "When does it stop? When does it go away, this, this..."

"I don't think it does." Everything inside him feels so _heavy_ , like his bones are filled with sand, and he can barely expend the energy it takes to fill his lungs with air. "I think you just get used to it." Maybe it's like lacrosse, running suicide sprints over and over until you’re strong enough. Maybe one day this weight won't feel as crushing. Maybe grief is a muscle, after a while, if he works it out enough, you’re strong enough to hold all the regret slipping through your fingers. Maybe shoulders only bend, don't break.

-

"What if I loved you." It doesn't come out quite a question. He watches shadows drag across Lydia's skin, passing headlights gliding over the sheets. Lydia twists her neck to look back at him, laid out on her belly, idly flipping through one of her advanced organic chemistry textbooks. He traces the chemical symbol of nitric acid on her lower back with his fingertips, the answer to the question she just highlighted, and waits for her to respond to his almost-question.

"What if I loved you?"

Scott frowns, focuses on a freckle resting at the dip of Lydia's spine. He rolls away, pulling the sheet up over Lydia's naked back, and clicks off the bedside lamp. The textbook is shoved to the floor and he tangles the sheet over her waist, scooping Lydia into his arms and resting their foreheads together. He knows what this is. He can feel the open wound that Allison left behind, like a physical presence. He may not know why, but he knows that there is something like comfort, something like penance in touching Lydia; he knows she feels it too. He knows what this is.

"Do you think you can love more than one person at once?"

"I'm not in love with you." She says, firm and pulse steady. Scott stares into her eyes, picturing their brilliant green-gold combination instead of the flat black the dark room makes them.

"Okay," he says, the honesty making his voice rough.

She's silent for so long he assumes she's done talking, so he settles into the warmth of her body and lets sleep tug at him. "Yes," and it's so quiet, even he and his enhanced hearing almost miss it, "you can."

He knows what this is. They will always be missing something and always be searching for it in each other. They’ll never find it, and this won't last and it isn't even right, probably. It's probably textbook unhealthy and somewhere some psychologist is laughing at them. But he can't help his smile, pressing his fingertips to her jaw and closing his eyes when she leans her lips against his.

And if he imagines an extra pair of arms around his waist, well, at least he knows he’s not the only one.

**Author's Note:**

> clearing out stuff from my drafts and i forgot i wrote this shortly after allison moved to france :(  
> title from "Conversation 16" by The National  
> [tumblr](http://katsofmeer.tumblr.com/)


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